Catherine Campbell is a second-year english student at Kwantlen.
She spends most of her time taking pictures and writing everything
from essays to poetry. She owns 64 pairs of shoes, yells support
to her favourite sports teams through the television, prefers to be
outside, never misses an episode of How I Met Your Mother, loves
crepes and prays every night that the Rolling Stones will come back
to town. Check out page 12 for Catherine’s tips on how to keep your
nails trendy in 2012.

Production Editor / Antonio Su
production@runnerrag.ca / 778-565-3806

runnermag.ca

vimeo.com/runnerrag

Chris Yee joined The Runner on a whim. In his three years here, Chris
has held the student affairs and creative arts bureau chief positions.
Chris likes to think of himself as having many interests, like sleeping in, the GrassRoots Cafe, local history and Tumblr, among other
things. Chris looks at pre- and post-Expo ‘86 Vancouver through the
eyes of a local artists in this edition’s Local Eyes on pages 8 & 9.

Laura Collins is a second-year journalism student and fashion writer
for The Runner. If her articles were handbags you’d find them at
Holt Renfrew, but in the sale section, because she’s nice like that.
Laura keeps us trendy and chic with fashion tips for the new year
on page 12.

Funds are collected by the university and
channelled to PIPS via the KSA.

MATT LAW / THE RUNNER

Rather than being Debbie Downers, we thought we would kick off the new year on a
positive note. So, kudos to all the individual Kwantlen students who paid attention and
came out to exercise their right to vote at the Nov. 30 SGM. Good for you for being an
engaged Kwantlen student. Now, to you other 16,500 some-odd Kwantlen students:
where the hell were you?

Bill 18, which had brought the provincial
government into conflict with faculty and
staff associations, will not become law —
at least for now.
The bill, which sought to amend numerous acts related to post-secondary education in B.C., was pulled before second
reading by the Liberal government, and
won’t be back until the spring legislative
session.
However, only a handful of the 57
proposed amendments stirred up controversy. Five of the these, affecting the province’s University Act and the College and
Institutes Act, would allow the boards of
governors of post-secondary institutions
to expel elected faculty, student or staff
representatives if they had a two-thirds
majority.
They would also bar elected members
from serving as chair on these boards and
prohibit faculty or staff representatives
from sitting on the executives of organizations engaged in collective bargaining
or dispute resolution with the institution.
“Nobody seems to quite know where
this has come from,” said Michelle Mungall, the B.C. NDP’s critic for advanced
education. “I think it’s just unreal that
they have included these sections that
are inherently anti-democratic [and] completely inappropriate, and destabilize a
century of tradition.”
Organizations representing faculty and
staff at post-secondary institutions, such
as the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators (FPSE), the B.C. Government and
Service Employee Union (BCGSE) and
the Canadian Association of University
Teachers (CAUT), have strongly opposed
the amendments. They’ve encouraged
their membership to send letters to the
ministry, which has received over 1,000 of
these in the past two weeks.
FPSE president Cindy Oliver stated in
a press release that they would be willing
to fight the bill all the way to the Supreme
Court if necessary.
“If this legislation passes, [B.C. Pre-

mier] Christy Clark will effectively be
dictating to our members who they can
and can’t elect as their representative on
the Board of Governors,” she wrote. “It is
more than just an affront to our democratic rights; it’s a full-on attack of our freedom of association rights that are spelled
out in the Charter.”
Naomi Yamamoto, the minister for advanced education, believes that the opposition to the bill is a result of miscommunication and that the bill itself would in
no way dilute the rights of elected board
members.
“Bill 18 absolutely values, and [the]
government values, the participation
of students and staff and faculty on the
boards,” she said. “We are only preventing or making it ineligible for an elected
member to serve on the board if that person is involved in negotiating terms of
their contract or the terms of their service
on behalf of their association.
“Right now, there’s no way of removing an elected member if the person is in
a conflict of interest or their conduct is not
considered professional.”
Yamamoto said that the amendments
weren’t a result of any specific incidents,
but did note that “there have been some
circumstances that have caused us concerns, especially when that board member has shown really poor judgement in a
criminal matter and there was no way for
the board to remove that member.”
She also stressed that nothing in this
bill gives the provincial government the
right to remove elected members, unless
two-thirds of a board recommended it.
However, provincial appointees make
up the majority of many university
boards. And when their votes are combined with those of a university’s president and chancellor, they often have the
two-thirds majority required to eject an
elected member.
Mungall believes that this would give
the province an unprecedented say in
who can represent students, faculty and
staff at post-secondary institutions.
“The only people who should be able
to remove somebody who is elected are

those who elected them,” she said. “And
students should be very concerned about
that. Do they think government appointees ought to have the right to remove
their representative?”
Yamamoto said delaying the bill will
“give me an opportunity to further discuss
[the bill] with some of these organizations
that are concerned,” and added that she
already met with CAUT last week.
“I just want to say that I have been on
a college board and served as board chair,
and that was Capilano College at the time.
And I can tell you that the participation of
the education council or the faculty and

the staff or students is absolutely valued
[and] I am in no way trying to diminish
that.”
Mungall believes that the Liberal government should drop the controversial
amendments and move forward with the
rest of the bill.
“This is just another frustrating point
about this bill ... there are sections in this
bill that are desperately needed right now.
And to put in something controversial
with something that the rest of the house
agrees with is just bad governance.”

Controversial former Kwantlen Student
Association (KSA) executives Aaron
Takhar, Jatinder “Joey” Atwal, and Jaivin
Khatri staged a protest in support of the
12 recently-impeached board members, on
Kwantlen’s Surrey campus, Dec. 5.
Takhar and Atwal led the protest, taking turns shouting through a megaphone,
criticizing the university, the newly-appointed interim KSA directors, and The
Runner newspaper. Takhar, Atwal and
Khatri were all defendants in the civil case
that alleged former KSA directors and staff
members had misused more than $2 million in student fees to commit mismanagement and breach of fiduciary duty, before
that case was settled in October.
Starting shortly after 3 p.m., about 25
former KSA officials, former staff, students, and family members took part in
the protest, hoisting signs and shouting
at the crowd of students and faculty that
gathered to watch. The group marched
back and forth several times between the
KSA offices and the Surrey campus’ main
courtyard, before dissolving.
Using the megaphone, Takhar repeatedly called for Kwantlen Polytechnic
University president John McKendry and
associate vice president Jody Gordon, as
well as the newly-appointed KSA officials,
to come out and answer his questions.
Noticeably absent were former KSA
president Harman “Sean Birdman” Bassi,
and the four other impeached executives,
Balninna “Nina Kaur” Sandhu, Parminder
“Bobby” Padda, Jaspinder Ghuman, and
Tarun Takhar. According to comments
made by Sandhu to local media, some or
all of them have been temporarily suspended by the university. Sandhu and
Aaron Takhar are first cousins.
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

KSA
CONT. FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Other family members also rallied to
show their support, including Aaron’s
younger brother, Stefen Takhar, Aaron’s
brother-in-law, Harman Mann, and Nina
Sandhu’s younger brother, Harnek Singh
Sandhu.
The recently-ousted director of operations Nipun Pandey, former Cloverdale
campus director Shivinder Grewal, and
former students with disabilities liaison
Aastha Arora were also part of the protest.
Surrey RCMP officers were present on
campus during the rally.
“We were protesting this ludicrous
cycle of lawsuits, more specifically the
special general meeting,” said Aaron
Takhar after the protest. Takhar claimed
to speak for the executives who were
“unable to speak for themselves because
they’ve been suspended.”
“We were just trying to get answers to
some basic questions,” he said.
Takhar says he wanted to know why
he and other students who attended
Kwantlen in 2005 were named in the motion passed at the Nov. 30 special general
meeting. He also suggested that the motions were racially motivated, pointing
out that all 26 people named are South
Asian.
“I don’t like being subject to any resolution, any kind of a meeting, where my
standing, whether it means anything or
not, is affected, without me being notified,” he said.
Takhar claimed to have no knowledge
about why three of his family members
had become involved with the Kwantlen
Student Association.
“I don’t know, you got to ask them.
They ran,” he told The Runner. “I don’t
know if it was a coincidence. That’s up
to you guys to judge. So they got elected,
they took office, the rest is history.”
Takhar refuted the suggestion that
he was concerned that the new interim
council might reinstate the civil suit
against him and the other former defendants.
“The lawsuit’s done, it doesn’t matter
at this point,” he said. “The case is in the
gutter, which is where we wanted it to
end up in the beginning.”
Takhar maintains that he is completely innocent of all charges that were leveled in the civil suit, and that the KSA
was only able to get default judgments
against him because he wasn’t “interest-

ed in spending that kind of money” to
defend himself in court.
In a Dec. 4 press release, the removed
KSA board claimed that the results of the
Nov. 30 special general meeting were invalid and threatened legal action against
the KSA and the university, if they were
not immediately restored to power.

“If this issue is not resolved on Monday the rightful Board of Directors will
take its fight to the BC Supreme Court
for a final resolution,” said former KSA
director of events Tarun Takhar in the
written statement.
The ousted-council members say that
they and their supporters were unfairly

barred from entering the Nov. 30 meeting and that they have a petition signed
by more than 400 students who support
them.
Former KSA chairperson Nina Sandhu did not respond to an email request
for comment before The Runner‘s deadline.

NEWS

page six | January 10 2012 | vol. 4 issue 08

The Runner | www.runnermag.ca

JIBC

Shooting and arson attacks continue
against people linked with B.C. institute
Thirteen people associated with the Justice Institute of B.C. have been targeted in 2011.

I

ARSHY MANN
CUP WESTERN BUREAU CHIEF

Three more incidents and an Insurance
Corporation of B.C. (ICBC) link have
emerged in connection to the targeted attacks on people associated with the Justice
Institute of British Columbia (JIBC).
In September, the RCMP advised the
public that 10 individuals linked with JIBC
had been the victims of arson or shooting
attacks throughout 2011. The people targeted included three JIBC employees, two
former students and five others with loose
links to the institution.
“[We] had determined that there was a
larger issue here with regards to a variety
of shootings and arsons and quickly determined that there was some commonality
between them,” said Sgt. Peter Thiessen.
Since then, three more people have
been targeted, though none of the 13 suffered any injuries. The attacks occurred at
or near the victims’ homes and vehicles.
Thiessen declined to specify where the
attacks took place, except to state that they
were spread throughout the Lower Mainland and that none took place on any of
JIBC’s seven campuses.
The RCMP has been working in conjunction with local police departments
since September to track down the assailants, and despite being a priority for all
police departments in the region, no arrests have been made.
“We recognize this is very disturbing
for the victims,” wrote RCMP Chief Supt.
Janice Armstrong in a press release. “In response to the victims’ concerns, I can say
we have a large, dedicated team of investigators, who have gathered a considerable
amount of evidence. We anticipate that all
those responsible for these violent criminal
acts will ultimately be brought to justice.”
According to the RCMP, none of the
victims have any links to criminality.

Justice Institute of British Columbia
JIBC, a public post-secondary institution based out of New Westminster, trains
people in a variety of disciplines related
to justice and often instructs professionals
such as police officers, paramedics, social
workers and correctional staff.
Jack McGhee, the president of JIBC,
wrote in a Dec. 14 press release that the institute has been working closely with the
RCMP over the past few months.
“We are very concerned that there have
been additional incidents,” he went on to
state. “The safety and security of our students, staff, faculty, and the public who
use our campuses is of paramount importance to JIBC.”
According to Chris Wong, senior manager of communication and marketing at
JIBC, no current students have been victims of these attacks.
He said that since JIBC was informed of
the incidents back in August, the institute
has taken numerous safety precautions to
protect its staff and students.

“We have reviewed security at all of our
campuses and the recommendations from
that review have been implemented,” he
said. “People are concerned, but they’ve
been very professional ... [They] have been
going about their jobs.”
He went on to say that the institute has
been ensuring that students and staff are
properly informed about the attacks and
that it does so through a variety of means
such as emails, social media and classroom
announcements.
Neither the RCMP or JIBC would speculate about possible motivations for the
attacks.
ICBC data breach
In addition to the new incidents, the
RCMP also announced that an Insurance
Corporation of B.C. (ICBC) claims adjuster
has been fired after it was found that she
had illegally accessed the personal information of 65 people — including the data
of the 13 victims.
ICBC is a crown corporation in B.C. that

provides auto insurance and licensing for
drivers and vehicles.
The RCMP is alleging that the woman,
who remains unidentified, funnelled this
information to an unknown group who
then used the data to target people linked
with JIBC. The employee, along with others, are now under police investigation.
Mark Jan Vrem, manager of media relations for ICBC, said that “As soon as this
improper access was uncovered, [the employee] was fired without severance.”
He went on to say that ICBC does not
know why she accessed the private data.
“All we know is that this employee improperly accessed the information. What
she did with that, we have no way of
knowing,” he said.
In a press release, ICBC president and
CEO Jon Schubert stated that the corporation has “conducted a thorough internal
and an independent external review of our
systems as a result of the privacy breach
and have taken steps to better guard
against this type of incident from happening again.”

BC GOV/FLICKR

www.runnermag.ca | The Runner

EDITORIAL

vol. 4 issue 08 | January 10 2012 | page seven

FEMINISM

INTERNET

U mad? Get the “F” out

Copyright? More
like copy wrong

v Hospitalizations for little girls with eating disorders went up 100 per cent in the last decade,
reports the American Academy of Pediatrics.
v Equal Voice BC reported that women make up 34 per cent (65 out of 192) of the councillors
elected in the municipal elections last year.
v Headline: “British judges free child rapists, say 12-year-old girls ‘wanted’ sex.”
v Cosmetic surgery increased 446 per cent in the last decade to reach $12 billion in 2010 with
92 percent of those voluntary procedures (mostly liposuction and breast augmentation)
performed on females – some younger than 18.
v While at a conference, a female cabinet minister from Ontario was introduced by a male cabinet
colleague with the statement, “She’s got better legs, what can I say?”
v The Institute on Gender and Media reports that the female characters in G-rated movies wear the
same amount of sexually revealing clothing as the female characters in R-rated movies.
v In Sweden, 47.3 per cent of national legislators are female, compared with only 21.7 per cent in
Canada.
v In 2006, only 11 or 5.7 percent of the world’s 191 nations were lead by women

I

KARI MICHAELS
CONTRIBUTOR

Do any of these facts make you feel frustrated, angry, or strike you as being particularly
unfair? Do they make you want to turn to the
stranger next to you and say “WTF? Did you
hear about this?” Do you feel like something
just doesn’t sit right about the world being
that way?
Then I’ve got news for you my friend,
you’re a feminist: a fucking feminist. And
we couldn’t be more proud of you. Now you
need to feel proud about yourself, own that
word, and remember exactly what it means.
Young women tend to say the phrase “I’m
not a feminist but...” a lot these days. Usually
they are reacting to a situation involving blatant sexism like those listed above. A straw
feminist has been created and she was creat-

ed in an image that most women don’t want
to identify with even though they’re agreeing with 90 per cent of what she says.
A feminist isn’t the stereotypical angry,
shaved head, militant, ball busting woman
with body hair and a bad attitude. She is you,
and me, and her, and him; we who believe in
a fair world in all our wonderful shapes and
sizes, fashion styles and sexualities. We are
frustrated that women aren’t taken seriously
in the media and that little girls who dream
of being the President or a super hero end up
believing they shouldn’t be so ambitious.
So you’ve come to terms with being a
feminist and you’re wondering what that
means. You’re ready to take this badge and
wear it with pride. “What’s next?” you ask.
Tell your friends to get the “F” out – tell them
to raise their feminist flag and join you in

the ranks of those of us fighting for a truly
equal world. Talk to your friends and class
mates about these issues, ask questions and
celebrate the diversity in the community. Be
bold and don’t accept the world around you
for how others construct it, encourage the
women in your community to get engaged
politically and love yourself for who you are
because you are beautiful.
Women Organizing Opportunities for Women
is a feminist club at Kwantlen. WOOW aims to
challenge generally accepted opinions on gender
bias and sexuality and looks to bridge the gender
gap by raising awareness of gender inequality and
by inspiring women to take on leadership roles.
To join the club email KPU.WOOW@gmail.
com, follow our tweets @woow_club and “like”
our page on Facebook.

I

JAMES WILSON
THE ARGOSY (MOUNT ALLISON UNIVERSITY)

SACKVILLE, N.B. (CUP) — Recently, Congress put forward a bill that makes my indifferent position towards U.S. policy untenable. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
is being debated in congressional hearings
this month. It is, in my opinion, a bill put
forward by someone with good intentions
who lacks the experience to word it properly (Rep. Lamar Smith).
The bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders against
any website found infringing copyright regardless of where in the world the website
was hosted. Search engines and companies
that take payments such as PayPal could
be prohibited from doing business with
or linking to a targeted website. There is a
whole bundle of sovereignty issues here,
but let’s put it aside for now.
The main problem with SOPA is it holds
sites responsible for the acts of its users (and
that the bill has vague definitions). YouTube,
Facebook and Wikipedia all have infringing
material on them somewhere. And due to
the nature of those sites, they will likely be
fined through SOPA again and again. Websites that do movie reviews, gameplay videos or satire could potentially all be blocked
by the poorly worded SOPA. In short, this
bill is an Internet-killer. It could also potentially kill the jobs that depend on an open
and obstruction-free Internet.
But back to sovereignty for a moment. If
such a bill came into effect, the rest of the
world would likely ignore the over-reaching U.S. Congress — except for Canada.
Our laughably underdeveloped Internet
infrastructure relies heavily on American
infrastructure. There is also the issue of
changing norms: if this kind of blocking
becomes the norm, what is to stop Syria or
Iran from blocking sites they don’t like (i.e.
pro-democracy sites)?
Of course, there are heavy-hitting opponents to this bill, including Google, Wikimedia, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and, recently,
Microsoft.
If this bill passes without some major editing, the internet may become a shadow of
its former self.

www.runnermag.ca | The Runner

CULT

LOCAL

Beyond Vague Terrain explores the geogra

Beyond Vague Terrain is the multi-artist exhibition at the Surrey Art Gallery that tells the story of the Lower Mainland and its industrial terrains, pre

A fabricated image from a construction site in South Surrey. Helma Sawatzky, The Phoenix Complex (2012). COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ELLIOTT LUIS GALLERY

TURE

vol. 4 issue 08 | January 10 2012 | page nine

phy of ‘non-places’ through serial images

e- and post-Expo 86, through serial images and photography.

I

CHRIS YEE
SENIOR CULTURE WRITER

The growth of suburbia and its vast supporting infrastructure was well underway in
the late 20th century, motivating artists and
urbanists alike to speak of “defeatured landscapes” or “non-places.” The interchangeable and transitional post-industrial locales
punctuated by such familiar structures as
multi-lane freeways, big box retail outlets
and office parks.
Similarly, the Surrey Art Gallery’s upcoming exhibition, Beyond Vague Terrain,
named for architect and philosopher Ignasi
de Solà-Morales’ notion of “terrain vague” in
relation to non-places like freeways and lowdensity commercial zones, deals not only
with the physical landscape of the city, but
also with the figurative landscape of recent
art history.
The works presented in Beyond Vague Terrain are joined by their use of serial imagery,
or multiple images within the same artwork,
a departure from the singular images typically associated with artistic depictions of
urban landscapes.
As curator Jordan Strom notes, serial imagery is also a way to “think beyond” notions
of the “defeatured landscapes” and vague
terrain of the contemporary city. As Beyond
Vague Terrain’s press release describes:
“These serial artworks – both photographic and non-photographic – challenge
the notion of the ‘city centre,’ and ask that
its margins be re-imagined, just as the idea of
the ‘generic city’ is challenged when a place’s
specific qualities and histories are revealed.”
Beyond Vague Terrain is situated in contemporary art history. Strom notes that the
1970s were a watershed for serial imagery
in art, the developments in video art becoming an influence on photography and then to
other forms of visual art.
One of the featured works in Beyond Vague
Terrain, Khan Lee’s 109-foot light box panorama Millennium Line (2011), is a good illustration of this point. Millennium Line’s use of
a moving SkyTrain to compose a panoramic
shot can be likened to the use of a dolly to
construct panoramas in film.
In the pre- and post-Expo years (from the

late 1970s through to the 1990s), Vancouver
became known for a loose movement of conceptual artists –– especially photographers
–– who interrogated, among other things,
its cityscape, a cityscape in transition. Collectively, they would be known as the Vancouver School; associated with the group
were such artists as Jeff Wall and Ian Wallace. Incidentally, both artists are featured in
the Vague Terrain exhibition, along with more
contemporary artists like Lee.
The nature of serial imagery also seems to
comment on the recent proliferation of imagery as much as it does the proliferation of
the city. Made possible by digital technology,
the press release asks, “Can it similarly be
claimed that every series of images or combination of spaces has already been pictured?”
With these points in mind, we note that
space and the perceptions thereof (and
therein) are major themes in the works featured in Vague Terrain. For instance, Bill Jeffries’s Panopticon: 103 views of the Scotia Bank
Tower (1978-79) traces a path over Vancouver
around what was then the tallest building
in the city, with 103 annotated photographs
taken from a variety of locations. Similarly,

Jeff Wall’s 1969 booklet Landscape Manual
takes the form of ruminations set to a series
of photographs taken by Wall from the window of a car.
Helma Sawatzky’s work subverts the
seamless compositing normally seen in digital photocollages. In Morgan Crossing, from
Construction Sites Phase II (2009) or, more
strikingly, The Phoenix Complex (2012), one
can clearly see the disjunctions between the
different angles of the works’ constituent
photos, yielding an almost cubist effect to her
composited panoramas of construction sites
in South Surrey. Yet these disjunctions seem
to flow seamlessly into the image, which
looks subtly rickety as opposed to merely
glitchy, at least at first glance.
Sylvia Borda’s Every Bus Stop in Surrey,
BC (2004) maps and “recontextualizes” (as
Borda puts it) Surrey’s geography through
a database of every bus stop in the city (as
the work’s title makes explicit). In her statement for Every Bus Stop, Borda makes a particularly appropriate reference to the work
of a French photographer named Eugene
Atget, who documented Paris in the throes

of its own redevelopment (the widening of
its boulevards) - Surrey can be said to be in
a similar transitional state. “The birth of any
city is nothing new; however, its transition
from an earlier state to another happens only
once,” Borda writes.
Jeremy Hurndl’s paintings of North Surrey neighbourhoods also deal with notions
of transition and passage of time in the city.
Made over a period of six months, Hurndl’s
paintings inevitably incorporate a degree of
flux: as the press release put it, they “depict
an ever transforming view” of his subject.
While many of the artists featured in
Vague Terrain are associated with Vancouver
area, Strom says the exhibition is not necessarily about one place or another - rather
it is balanced between “the particular and
the general,” he says. There are other commonalities between the works. Realism, a
documentary impulse, approached in a nonstraightforward way, like the askance angles
of Sawatzky’s panoramas of construction
sites - and, most of all, a concern with transition, whether geographical or (art) historical.

page ten | January 10 2012 | vol. 4 issue 08

CULTURE

The Runner | www.runnermag.ca

VINYL DUST-OFF

Vinyl Dust-off: Jethro Tull’s Stand Up
Lliam Easterbrook – sonic archaeologist – brings you his latest finds from excursions into ancient record bins. Every week – only on Vinyl Dust-off.

I

LLIAM EASTERBROOK
SENIOR FEATURES WRITER

5/5 RECORDS

Every time I watch Anchorman and Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), the dimwitted crackpot
misogynist gets called up on stage at the
speakeasy to show the audience his jazz flute
prowess, letting the brass flute coolly slide
out from his sleeve as he relents, “I’m honestly not prepared. I’m really not prepared,”
I think of Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. Burgundy even gives a nod to Anderson, exclaiming
“Hey Aqualung!” just before the finale.
Anderson doesn’t shatter glass or blow
fire, but; if you’ve seen the Rolling Stones’
film Rock and Roll Circus (and if you haven’t,
it’s well worth checking out), Anderson wails
on his flute, keeping one leg suspended in the
air for almost the entire set as his body sways
and contorts in mad ways to the groovy folkfunk rhythm section of Glenn Cornick and
Clive Bunker. It’s ridiculous…ly awesome,
to say the least.
On Jethro Tull’s second studio album,
Stand Up, we see Anderson take the reigns
of the band, writing and composing the entire album. The result is an album of varying
musical influences; from folk to progressive,
classical reprisals to traditional Celtic, psy-

chedelia to hard rock, Stand Up is a flawless
album.
At just under 40 minutes, Jethro Tull takes
the listener through one pastoral landscape
after another, seemingly separated by one
amazing flute solo after another. Now, I’m
not a fan of any kind of chirpy pan fluting
music.
So, if you’re a raging Gheorghe Zamfir
fan, not only is your musical taste questionable, you suck, and you probably won’t dig
how bitchin’ Ian Anderson’s flute sounds
next to a throbbing bass, rolling drums, and a
wailing guitar. Just listen to album opener “A
New Day Yesterday,” and you’ll see exactly
what I mean.
The artwork for Stand Up won best album art in 1969 — wait, do they even give
awards for album art anymore? Oh… right;
it’s rather cumbersome and vexing to grasp
a visual aesthetic when you’re squinting at
“art” the size of a fucking nickel on the screen
of your iPod.
Ahem, sorry — anyway, the original gatefold vinyl release featured a woodcut pop-up
book design, and when you opened up the
album, a cut-out of the band popped up like
a child’s pop-up book.
Even though the album reached number
one on the British charts that year, and the
artwork (by artist James Grashow) won best
artwork, unfortunately the record company
axed the woodcut design to save money on
production.

My 1973 vinyl edition just has a rad picture of the band.
It’s no pop-up book — but hey, at least
I’m not squinting like a perturbed rube at a

glow-moaning pixilation of Zamfir’s excruciatingly sentimental pan flute on my lossycompressed iPod, right?
Play it loud. Play it proud.

JANUARY MUSIC MOMENTS YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS...
The Evil Bastard KARAOKE Experience, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays (9 p.m.- 1 a.m.) >Kristi Alexandra
Take a stroll through the scariest part of town and you just might ﬁnd yourself at Funky Winkerbeans. Occasionally hosted by Vancouver punk-vets Mr. Chi Pig and Wendy Thirteen, the
dive bar is hosting karaoke four days per week. You’ll get so drunk for so cheap you won’t even notice you’re in the ﬁlthiest hole this side of the tracks.
Steel Panther, Jan. 12 and 13 at the Commodore Ballroom >Jacob Zinn
The sexually explicit ‘80s-style hair metal comedy group (known for such songs as “Eatin’ Ain’t Cheatin’” and “17 Girls in a Row”) will perform two back-to-back sold-out shows at the
Commodore Ballroom next Thursday and Friday. With a strong following of barely-legal groupies in short skirts and lifted shirts, they’re sure to have hardly-clad women lined up out the
door onto Granville Street. Steel Panther returns to the Commodore Ballroom for a two-night stand next Thursday and Friday, Jan. 12 and 13. Tickets for both shows are sold out.
City and Colour, Jan. 19 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre >Kristi Alexandra
While teenage girls and sad, sappy suckers alike might have taken their break-up song loyalty to Bon Iver rather than our fellow Canuck and ex-Alexisonﬁre vocalist, Dallas Green, the
man’s a talented songwriter. Aside from loving him musically and emotionally, as a Canadian, we really have to appreciate his spelling of “colour.” Right? Hear Dallas tell your emotionally
shipwrecked life-story live on Jan. 19 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

CULTURE

www.runnermag.ca | The Runner

vol. 4 issue 08 | January 10 2012 | page eleven

FILM

2012 in ﬁlm: the good, the bad and the ridiculous
I

BRENDAN TYNDALL
CONTRIBUTOR

This year in film, much like 2011, we can
expect a few good films surrounded in
an endless sea of remakes, sequels, prequels and adaptations of comic books,
novels and even board games. These are
just a few of them.
THE GREAT GATSBY
One of the more interesting films to
be released this year is Baz Luhrmann’s
adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Jay Gatsby, Tobey
Maguire as Nick Carraway and Carey
Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan. That the
film is being made is not all that strange;
there have been numerous film versions
of Gatsby over the years, most notably the
Francis Ford Coppola written version released in 1974. The most unusual aspect
of this remake is the fact that Luhrmann
chose to shoot it in 3D. Why he felt he
needed an extra dimension in order to
convey the story of tainted love and disillusion in 1920s America is a mystery.
Perhaps Luhrmann will use 3D to add
texture and brilliance to the glamourous
costumes and set designs that the film is
sure to feature. Either that, or the 3D will
be completely frivolous and Luhrmann
will find a way to tarnish the legacy of
one of the greatest pieces of American literature ever to be written. We’ll have to
wait until December to find out.
DJANGO UNCHAINED
Quentin Tarantino is back with his
first film since 2009’s Inglorious Basterds,
and like his past several films, this one
will be another revenge flick. This one,
entitled Django Unchained, will revolve
around a slave-turned-bounty-hunter
(Jamie Foxx) who seeks to rescue his
wife (Kerry Washington) from a domineering plantation owner (Leonardo
DiCaprio). The movie is purported to
be chock-full of racial slurs, rape and
violence, but seeing how it’s a Tarantino
movie, it will surely be peppered with
enough ironic music and witty dialogue
that it will somehow seem cool. After all,

he did manage to successfully pull off an
action-comedy film revolving around the
Holocaust. What’s stopping him from
tackling the other most reviled concept
in modern history, slavery?
THE DICTATOR
Sacha Baron Cohen is back playing
to his strengths as an awkward foreign
guy with a funny accent in The Dictator, which tells the story of an outlandish Gaddafi-eqsue ruler. While Cohen’s
schtick has played out before, sometimes
with better results than others, The Dictator has the benefit of being directed by
Larry Charles, who wrote a lot of the
classic episodes of both Seinfeld and Curb
Your Enthusiasm, so it ought to be worth
checking out.
A DANGEROUS METHOD
Another one to look forward to is
David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, about the birth of psychoanalysis in
which Viggo Mortensen plays Sigmund
Freud and Michael Fassbender plays
Carl Jung.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER
Keeping with the recent trend of
biopics, famed Republican pioneer, slavefreer and moustacheless beard-wearer
Abraham Lincoln will be the subject of
two this year, one directed by Steven
Spielberg and starring Daniel Day Lewis
as Honest Abe (Lincoln), and another one
perplexingly entitled Abraham Lincoln:
Vampire Hunter.
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
We can also expect the third installment of Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed
Batman series, starring Christian Bale
once again as the gravelly-voiced crimefighter.

cided to release his own unrelated film
entitled The Amazing Spiderman.

enough, they decided to throw in some
aliens to boot.

THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN

BATTLESHIP

And because people may have forgotten the wildly successful, three-part
Spiderman franchise released less than a
decade ago, Marc Webb has brazenly de-

Taking the cake as the most unnecessary film to be released in 2012 has to be
Battleship. As if turning a board game
into a motion picture weren’t stupid

Expect to see adaptations of The Three
Stooges, a Lord of the Rings prequel, a
3D Titanic, a version of Total Recall that
doesn’t contain Arnold Schwarzenegger
and another Men in Black.

A new year has arrived, and that means additions to your wardrobe. From opposing
silhouettes to continuing shoe styles, 2012 is
looking stylish.
Three-quarter length sleeves are perfect
right now; they keep you warm without
adding too much bulk. Look for this style of
shirt in either one of this year’s silhouettes.
The boxy fit gives you that comfy, casual feel

with its straight cut. Or choose a top with a
cinched waist to show off your curves.
Colour is huge this year, so look for bright
pieces to add personality to your wardrobe.
You’ll find blocks of colour on t-shirts and
boxy dresses, while bold patterns are ranging anywhere from jackets to pants. Yellow
is this year’s colour, with a deep mustard for
winter and fluorescent yellow for summer.
Keep your eyes out for this punchy trend.
What to pair with your new clothes? Ox-

Get extra height without the sacriﬁce of stilletos. MITCH THOMPSON/THE RUNNER.

ford shoes are sticking around and come in
a variety of styles. You can go simple with a
flat, neutral pair, go bold with a stark contrast of patent black and white, or dare to
strut in a pair of Oxford pumps.
If you can’t keep your balance in stilettos,
then try a wedge. They are a great alternative to get that extra height you love without sacrificing your feet. Look for them in
lace-up booties for the winter and later in
open-toe suede or sandals for the spring and

summer.
Add the finishing touch this year with
blue eye shadow. If you’re willing to go
all the way, choose deep shades to create a
smoky eye. If bold isn’t your thing, pick pale
blues or a blue eyeliner to achieve a subtler
version of the look.
2012 is bringing along some great trends,
so experiment with your style to express
your personality.

I CATHERINE CAMPBELL

“Hallucinate”; it’s a clear sparkle polish that
can be used as a top coat on any colour.
Purple is hot right now and has so many
shades to choose from. If you’re into lilac,
Essie has a great polish called “Lilacism”.
“Bad Romance” by Deborah Lippmann is a
blackened fuchsia. For a darker purple with
a bit of shimmer, check out OPI’s “Russian
Navy”; it does look navy blue when you first
put it on, but after a few coats, it turns dark
purple.
Cherry is a bright and playful colour that
looks great with that little black dress. Rimmel’s take is called “Cherry Fashion”. The
bottle says that it lasts for 10 days, and it really does. Nicole By OPI’s version is called “I
Love U Cherry Much.”

BEAUTY

Glitter your nails with gusto

Cherries, purples, golds and graphite glitter for your nails are all the rage in 2012. KATIE@/FLICKR

Cherry, sparkles, purple –– oh my!
The polishes that most ladies are picking
are anything but gloomy. Here are some of
the biggest nail polish trends right now:
The go-to trend of the season is sparkle.
Whether it be a sequined bag, glittery shoes
or a flashy nail polish, it livens up any outfit. For nail polishes that can give your look
a kick, check out OPI’s “Excuse Moi!” (from
their new The Muppets collection); its pink
base makes it a more girly polish. Also check
out OPI’s “Rising Star”, it’s shimmery and
gold. “I Love The Nightlife” is a graphite
glitter colour by Deborah Lippmann. If you
like the colours you have already and just
want to add the shine, pick up Wet N’ Wild’s

CULTURE

www.runnermag.ca | The Runner

vol. 4 issue 08 | January 10 2012 | page thirteen

TECH

BOOKS

Technology trends for 2012 will
see a booming tablet industry

The Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab will be stiff competitors to the iPad for tablets this year. KODOMUT/FLICKR.

I

KATYA SLEPIAN
CONTRIBUTOR

1

. THE RISE OF THE TABLET.

In 2010, if you wanted a tablet, you got
an iPad. Same thing in 2011.
While there were other options, the iPad
was still the coolest tablet around.
Now, however, Apple is facing some serious competition from Asus Transformer
Prime, the Amazon Kindle Fire and the
Samsung Galaxy Tab; especially now that
experts are predicting that people are going
to be using their tablets for a lot more than
reading, checking Facebook and playing
Angry Birds. It isn’t going to be about the
coolest app anymore, but about what the
tablet as a whole is capable of doing.
Soon college kids won’t be buying a laptop –– they’ll be getting a tablet with an attachable keyboard instead.

2

. BLACKBERRY SLOWING DOWN, MICROSOFT
CATCHING UP.

Even a couple years ago, Blackberries
were still a legitimate competitor on the

smartphone market. But that was back before the Android became such a huge competitor, and back when Windows Mobile
wasn’t the sleek, shiny and downright impressive thing that the new Windows Phone
promises to be.
According to comScore, RIM’s share of
the global smartphone market has dropped
from 19.7 per cent to 16.6 per cent between
August and November of 2011, while both
Google and Apple have risen. Microsoft has
had a 0.5 per cent drop, but analysts remain
positive about the potential of the Windows
Phone.
The bottom line is that Microsoft is at
least moving, while Blackberry says its next
generation of phones won’t be out till late
2012. And that may just be too long a wait.

3

. THE SPREAD OF (REAL) 4G.

If you’re currently using a smartphone
with a data plan, it’s probably running on
a 3G network. Many providers advertise
their networks as 4G, but that’s down to a
change in the definition and not because the
networks are 4G.
According to the CBC, the International

Telecommunication Union (ITU), “decided
that 3G technologies substantially better in
performance and capability than earlier 3G
technologies could be classified as 4G.”
Basically, as long as a network 3G service
now is better than their 3G service wo years
ago, they can call it 4G.
Let’s take Telus and Bell as our examples. Their first “4G” networks, launched in
2009, claimed to have download speeds of
21 megabytes per second (MBps). However,
if you read the small print, they admit that
the average download speeds will be 4-6
MBps (Telus) and 3.5-8 MBps (Bell). Their
upgraded 4G networks claim speeds of up
to 42 MBps and but in the small print you’ll
see that the average speed is 7-14 MBps.
That’s better than 3G, but not by much. My
iPhone 4 - running on Telus’ 3G network can get up to 5.61 MBps, which is the same
as their old average “4G” speeds and not
too far behind their new ones.
The point? In 2012, you can look forward
to real 4G networks, called LTE, or longterm evolution, much like what Verizon users down in the United States are enjoying
right now.

A year’s worth of
bookworming

I

SANA SOHEL
CONTRIBUTOR

As we enter into the new year, changes are
upon us. What better way to keep those
resolutions company than taking a reading
break now and then? Here are some cozy
reads that should warm up much of the
rainy days ahead.
Journalist Michael Hastings’s novel The
Operators will be released in early January
with a bang as it offers a controversial look
into the war in Afghanistan.
Ready for some laughs? Dave Barry and
Alan Zweibel offer plenty in their sure-tobe-a-bestseller novel, Lunatics, coming out
Jan. 10.
Also being released on the same date, is
award winning Canadian-Polish author Eva
Stachniak’s fiction novel The Winter Palace:
A Novel of Catherine the Great. A lot of buzz
surrounds the upcoming release of Alex
George’s debut novel, A Good American,
on Feb. 7, which follows the sad yet happy
journey of two American immigrants and
the lives they create.
Joining the shelf in February 2012, is Tatiana de Rosnay’s The House I Loved, and if
the success of her novel, Sarah’s Key is any
testament to her writing, then this one is
sure to be a page turner.
Vampires and werewolves have captured the hearts of many, and Anne Rice,
best known for her Vampire Chronicles, steps
up a notch and explores the world of werewolves in her new novel The Wolf Gift, being
released on Valentine’s Day.
And for those avid series readers, J.D
Robb’s latest edition to her In-Death series,
Celebrity in Death hits the shelves Feb. 21.
Lauren Kate’s fourth installment in the
Fallen series, Rapture, will be available June
12.
April 21 will see the release of Anne
Tyler’s latest novel The Beginner’s Goodbye,
which, according to the Book Page blog,
is “an exploration of loss and recovery in
which a middle-aged man, ripped apart by
the death of his wife, is gradually restored
by her frequent appearances (in their house,
on the roadway, in the market).”
So fellow bookworms, the world may or
may not end in 2012; hence, the only plausible thing to do would be to “keep on reading till the world ends.”

CULTURE

page fourteen | January 10 2012 | vol. 4 issue 08

The Runner | www.runnermag.ca

ENTERTAINMENT

Celebrities who will rise and fall in 2012
I

KATRINA PEDERSON
CONTRIBUTOR

2011 was a year filled with bizarre, exciting,
and mournful moments.
Charlie Sheen’s trolling and tiger blood
was not only laughed about, but marketed
as he toured around cities making a mockery out of himself.
This year, the world celebrated the 20th
anniversary of Nirvana’s album, Nevermind, and left many reminiscing about the
past decade.
John Galliano left Dior due to accusations of making anti-Semitic comments,
while Amy Winehouse ultimately lost her
battle with alcohol and drug abuse.
Generation Y lost Apple’s co-founder
Steve Jobs this year.
Although 2011 was exciting and riveting
in many ways, many stars leave behind a
trail of clues as to what to expect in the year
to come.
Some stars will shoot and some will fall.
SHOOTING STARS OF 2012:
Katy Perry: Katy is finally single again!
While celebrating New Years apart, Katy
Perry asked her husband of 14 months to
divorce her due to “irreconcilable differences.” This divorce would be a good reason
to place Katy Perry in the falling star category, but with new music coming out and
constant No. 1 hits, it wouldn’t be fair. Katy
Perry is louder and more successful than
ever before and being single again can only
bring good things for Katy and for other
Hollywood hotties as well.
Ryan Gosling: Canadian hunk Ryan Gosling won our hearts over in 2004s “The
Notebook” and has had a very successful
and noble rise to fame. Last year, he was
in blockbuster hits “Drive”, “The Ides of
March”, and “Crazy, Stupid, Love”. Recently, tabloids have been exploding with
rumours that Gosling is in a relationship
with Eva Mendes. The two have apparently been dating since September and with
the New Year maybe Ryan will pop with
question and elope with Mendes. If Ryan
Gosling does marry Mendes in this coming
year hopefully it will last as long as Kim
Kardashian’s marriage of 72 hours to Kris
Humphries, hopefully.

A newly single Katy Perry will be the subject of more than a few headlines. SEAN MANENTEE/
FLICKR.

FALLING STARS OF 2012:
Russell Brand: Without Katy Perry around
his arms, Russell Brand is going to be a very
lonely man. In the past, Russell Brand was
known for alcohol, drug, and sex abuse
which he detailed in both his books “My
Booky Wook” and “My Booky Wook 2: This
Time its Personal”. It’s to be expected that
Brand will let loose as soon as the divorce
is finalized and hook up with MANY other
Hollywood A-listers and maybe even some
prostitutes from his past, who knows?
Ashton Kutcher: With rumours (and
photos) circulating that Ashton Kutcher
cheated on long time wife, Demi Moore,
it leaves Kutcher in a bad standing in pop
culture along with James, Woods, Weiner,
and Schwarzenegger. Ashton took over for
Charlie Sheen in Two and Half Men. The television show is a success, while Kutcher’s
long locks haven’t been the same.
Kim Kardashian and co.: Media outlets
can’t seem to get enough of Kim Kardashian’s famous 72 hour marriage with
Kris Humphries. The reality T.V star and

family made over $65 million last year, according to The Hollywood Reporter, but could
this year be the end of the Kardashian family? Many are accusing the family fakes and
frauds after Kim’s marriage and divorce
scandal. Knowing the scrappy family, I
doubt it will be the end to their reign, but
here’s wishful thinking.

STUFF YOUR DAD LIKES

Stuff Your Dad
Likes: redoing
resolutions

I

JACOB ZINN
CONTRIBUTOR

With every new year, there’s a new year’s
resolution to be made and subsequently
broken.

No one is good at keeping their resolutions, your dad included. But the new
year is his second, third, 16th chance to
a) lose weight b) eat healthier or c) finally
build that backyard deck your mother’s
been nagging him about since their honeymoon.
Our family has never been one to
make new year’s resolutions. It’s like
creating a one-item to-do list that takes a
year to cross off.
With the end so far from sight, how
can anyone expect your dad to stick to
his workout regimen or dirt-flavoured
diet? There’s no time for using the Shake
Weight or calorie counting between
his 40-hour-per-week job, his regular
around-the-house chores and his crime
drama reruns.
Your dad might be like my dad, in that
he sets smaller goals for himself throughout the year. He’ll change his eating habits/exercise routine/hygiene slightly to
reach short-term achievements.
Let’s face it: your dad can only handle
so much of something at a time. He’s
old, and he’s not meant to try P90X or
Insanity. If unstacking the dishwasher is
an accomplishment to him, let him have
his moment.
That’s not to say he should get off
that easy for his new year’s resolution.
If your dad’s been resolving to do something bigger like get in better shape, give
him a kick in the pants and be his coach,
the same way he probably coached your
hockey team, baseball practice or child
beauty pageant.
Deep down, your dad really does
want to get his resolution done—he just
doesn’t want to adjust his lifestyle. Dare
him to finish the resolution he’s been
working on since before you were born,
and if he reaches that far, dare him to
start another in 2013.
It’s a clean slate for resolution doovers. Sure, your dad’s resolution may
be as old as you, but it doesn’t have to
be. Two decades is long enough to put
something off.
And while you’re at it, get him to finish building that deck before your mom
starts asking you to do it.

PROCRASTINATION

www.runnermag.ca | The Runner

STARS

vol. 4 issue 08 | January 10 2012 | page ﬁfteen

SKI NINJAS - KYLE LEES / THE ARGUS

CAPRICORN
Dec. 22 - Jan. 20

CANCER
June 21 - july 23

You will spend the next four months in a dark room
hearing “wah wha wha wha.”

Give it up. You will never become a space
cowboy.

AQUARIUS
Jan. 21 - Feb 19

Make tacos for dinner tonight because, hey,
everybody loves tacos.

PISCES
Feb. 20 - March 20
Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays. Find a stapler and get over it.

LEO
July 24 - Aug. 23

Take your life one step at a time — but walk all
funny, kinda like John Cleese.

VIRGO
Aug. 24 - Sept. 23

If you get bad news, don’t shoot the messenger.
Instead, ﬂog them to death with a piece of string.

ARIES
March 21 - April 19

Change the name of your wireless router to “FBI
Surveillance Van.”

TAURUS
April 20 - May 20

SMART ZONE

LIBRA
Sept. 24 - Oct. 23

Try something new this year. Perhaps extreme bug
collecting, or counting old people in White Rock.

SCORPIO
Oct. 24 - Nov. 22

You are a trend setter. Bring the mullet back, now.
Oh, and neon clothing.

GEMINI
May 21 - June 20

What does this horoscope symbol even mean?
It’s two dudes faces. I mean, come on ... your
horoscope is lame.

Find out exactly why it isn’t easy being green.

SAGITTARIUS
Nov. 23 - Dec. 21

Start telling more “that’s what she said” jokes.
Why? Because they’re awesome.